SAN DIEGO – San Diego State said it will investigate the phone records of the search committee that was commissioned to find a new athletic director in an effort to identify who “leaked” candidates’ names to The San Diego Union-Tribune during the interview process.

The university is doing so to “ensure confidentiality” in the process, an SDSU spokesman said.

SDSU decided not to hire any of the three candidates the committee recommended: UMass Athletic Director John McCutcheon, UCLA Senior Associate Athletic Director Ross Björk and Michigan Senior Associate Athletic Director Joe Parker. SDSU President Stephen Weber instead chose Washington State AD Jim Sterk, who went through a different interview process from the committee’s choices.

“As president, I always reserve the right to add additional candidates to the pool,” Weber said. “In this case, we had some outstanding candidates who had a critical need for confidentiality.”

The change happened sometime after candidates’ names surfaced in a Jan. 28 article in The Union-Tribune.

“When we were about ready to go down to the finalists and bring them in, we had a leak,” Weber said Monday. “And these (candidates are) people with real lives and real families, and people that count on them and count on their programs, so these are not trivial matters. And were we not able to ensure confidentiality, we would not have been able to have Jim here. We would not have been able to have some of these other candidates. So we said ‘OK, we will reconstitute the search committee.’ ”

Weber said a smaller, undisclosed “reconstituted” committee helped interview and select Sterk. Weber said the new committee comprised “some members of the first committee plus one.” The original 10-member committee comprised faculty, staff and boosters.

Weber said Sterk had been a candidate for the original committee but withdrew after candidates’ names were reported. Weber said Sterk was brought back in after the committee was reconstituted.

“I basically said I couldn’t be in a public interview process,” Sterk said. “If there was confidentiality, I would love to talk to the president and search committee.”

Candidates often like confidentiality because if it becomes publicized that they are in the hunt for another job, their current employers and backers might question their commitment at their current jobs. Pressure also builds to make a decision to stay or go before an offer is on the table.

McCutcheon also withdrew but did not give a reason. Weber said the problem with candidates’ names being publicized was that it “revealed the candidacy of sitting ADs.”

“We went into a committee, and we all said, ‘This is critical,’ ” Weber said. “Other people are putting their careers in our hands. We have an obligation to preserve that confidentiality. Jim Sterk is a gift to San Diego State and San Diego State athletics that we would not have if we could not have had confidentiality.”